What is up with the charges of xenophobia again?? I look forward to seeing Taken 3 being set in the U.S just to see what charges will be made next. "Clearly the film-makers feel those who wear baseball caps and cowboy boots deserve to die..."

ORIGINAL: AxlReznor Exactly. No one who sees these movies is led to believe that the entire country is full of kidnappers who ply women with drugs and force them into the sex trade. Only that it does happen, and as that's what the movie's about, that's what it's going to show you more of. The same way Trainspotting didn't lead anyone to believe that everyone in Scotland is a heroin addict... and Warrior King didn't lead anyone to believe that all of Australia steals elephants for a living.

ORIGINAL: AxlReznor Exactly. No one who sees these movies is led to believe that the entire country is full of kidnappers who ply women with drugs and force them into the sex trade. Only that it does happen, and as that's what the movie's about, that's what it's going to show you more of. The same way Trainspotting didn't lead anyone to believe that everyone in Scotland is a heroin addict... and Warrior King didn't lead anyone to believe that all of Australia steals elephants for a living.

Thank you, someone with a bit of sense.

And illustrated with a decent analogy. I thought Taken was a crap film because it was badly made, badly acted and had ridiculous story contrivances, simple as that.

ORIGINAL: AxlReznor Exactly. No one who sees these movies is led to believe that the entire country is full of kidnappers who ply women with drugs and force them into the sex trade. Only that it does happen, and as that's what the movie's about, that's what it's going to show you more of. The same way Trainspotting didn't lead anyone to believe that everyone in Scotland is a heroin addict... and Warrior King didn't lead anyone to believe that all of Australia steals elephants for a living.

Thank you, someone with a bit of sense.

Yes, the original Taken review sounded like it was written by someone hopped up on Soy Chai tea who just lost their new pair of hemp sandals.

_____________________________

Eddie: "Weve been burgaled" Richie: You may have been, but I have never in my life. As a christian I am so tightly clenched, oh you mean burgaled - - - There were originally five horsemen of the apocalypse. Jack Bauer said he would travel by foot

Eddie: "Weve been burgaled" Richie: You may have been, but I have never in my life. As a christian I am so tightly clenched, oh you mean burgaled - - - There were originally five horsemen of the apocalypse. Jack Bauer said he would travel by foot

A shame Nick didn't have the guts to say: "F--k you Fox, for f--king up a potential franchise!" Mega-douche Megaton should not be allowed to make movies, period, the man is a disgrace. And Liam Neeson should've taken a leaf from Joel Kinnaman, whose only condition to star in the RoboCop reboot, was that it was R-rated.

Forget this whole individual point of view. I don't see "5 stars - Nick De Sem" on movie posters. It's the score Empire magazine give, the reviewer is just paid to deliver the goods in a fashion the magazine want them to in a way that will appeal to the audience and more importantly, the advertisers...

ORIGINAL: AxlReznor Exactly. No one who sees these movies is led to believe that the entire country is full of kidnappers who ply women with drugs and force them into the sex trade. Only that it does happen, and as that's what the movie's about, that's what it's going to show you more of. The same way Trainspotting didn't lead anyone to believe that everyone in Scotland is a heroin addict... and Warrior King didn't lead anyone to believe that all of Australia steals elephants for a living.

Thank you, someone with a bit of sense.

Have to agree with this, the accusations were bollocks four years ago and they're still bollocks now.

When the Luc Besson-produced action thriller Taken became a major hit and gained a cult following since its 2008 release, no one was more surprised than its star Liam Neeson, who initially saw it as a straight-to-video piece, and is now redefined as a late action star. Despite its success, Taken didnít really shout out for a sequel, given that it was a brainless shooter with a level of unintentional funniness; and yet Neesonís set of skills are seen again.

Receiving a surprise visit from his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) during his trip to Istanbul, Bryan Mills (Neeson) becomes the target for the chief of the Albanian Mafia (Rade äerbeděija). With Lenore held hostage and Kim on the run, Mills must utilize all his lethal skills to rescue them and eliminate any who are seeking revenge against him.

While the first film wasnít that great, there was a novelty about Michael Collins stepping into the shoes of Charles Bronson, as he kills everyone in Europe and even facing a French copper who carries a baguette. In the case of this sequel, the plot feels more throwaway, in which the villains this time are the fathers/uncles/brothers of the baddies from the first film. From its tagline, ďFirst they took his daughter. Now they're coming for himĒ, the twist is that Bryan gets taken, along with his ex-wife, so the former damsel-in-distress daughter has to save her parents. Whilst Maggie Grace, partially in a bikini, is involved in a number of chase sequences, in the end itís Liam Neeson who has to take everyone down.

With the director of Transporter 3 at the helm, youíre not going expect Jason Statham comically removing his shirt, which is more fun, but you will see an Irishman in his sixties showing off his Bourne-lite skills. In order to appeal to a wider audience, the action is given a 12A polish whilst trying to please the fans of the first film, but because the violence is so tamed, there is nothing thrilling in any of the shoot-outs, as well as the ďshaky-camĒ effect becoming very nauseating.

With no plans of doing a threequel, this is the best decision as Taken 2 pretty much lacks everything youíd expect from its half-decent predecessor. Even with Liam Neeson being at the centre of the piece, there was nothing to really laugh at.

Bryan Mills is performing a security mission in Istanbul. He is surprised to be met by his daughter Kim and his ex-wife Lenore at the hotel. He is unaware that the bad guys from the first movie are seeking revenge for the death of their brothers and sons at his very hands. He had to free his daughter from a human trafficking organisation by killing these men. Now they are prepared to ambush him in Istanbul by interrogating someone that knows him. While Bryan and Lenore leave Kim at the hotel, they are stalked by the evil Albanians and eventually captured. Bryan must communicate with his daughter over the phone to try and determine his own location, escape and then finish the villians once and for allÖ..

If youíve been reading my reviews on this website for quite a while, youíll be used to me moaning about some things that are prevalent in films at the moment and that I really disike, but there have been pleasures to balance the bad things out, and one of these is the re-emergence of Liam Neeson, an actor Iíve always enjoyed watching, as an aging action star. This was primarily done to a modest but very successful movie called Taken in 2008, where he tore through Paris trying to rescue his daughter from a human slavery ring, and, though his films since then have certainly entertained, it seems that fans really wanted him to reprise the role of Bryan Mills, the ex-CIA with a special set of skills who will stop at nothing to save members of his family from harm. I wasnít too sure whether I wanted a sequel myself, even though for me the first film was probably the greatest guilty pleasure of its year, and word seems to already around that this second film is a poor effort [though the first picture got mostly poor reviews by uptight and sometimes overly politically correct critics]. In any case, itís got the awesome Neeson in another city kicking arse, so how bad can it really be?

It certainly begins interestingly, with us being shown that Mills killed so many people in the first movie that a transport plane is needed to airlift their bodies home and a mass burial is required to dispose of them. Action movies really account for all the corpses left strewn around, though you may remember when the first Austin Powers film had a great gag in a related vein. After this Taken 2 proceeds in a similar manner to the first, with much mediocre dialogue between Mills, his wife Lenore and his daughter Grace, except that Millís protective urge has an unwelcome bit of creepiness when he bursts in on his daughter making out with her boyfriend. Sadly though it quickly becomes obvious that this movie just doesnít have a decent director with the endless aerial shots [and yes, I like aerial shots, but not an absurd number of them]. For a while virtually every scene, even short, seems to open with a bloody aerial shot, as if everyone is being pursued by a fleet of helicopters. When the action kicks into gear though, the aerial shots start to mostly disappear, to be replaced byÖ..

Yes. You know it. Lots of quick cuts and close-ups where you canít see whatís going on. Iíve whinged about this dreadful trend in modern action [and increasingly in horror] many times before so Iím going to sound like a broken record here, but honestly, what is the bloody point? Thereís an early sequence where Mills is looking for Lenore, and after much rushing around enters a courtyard where a group of nasty henchmen surround him. The music adds the right feel and Neeson busts some decent moves, but you just see them, and what should be a decent martial arts brawl is simply a nuisance. A nice and lengthy car chase is reduced so much to a mass of one second close-ups of faces, one-second close-ups of parts of the vehicles and shaking the camera around that itís just a blur, and not only were my eyes sore but I felt that I was on the verge of having a headache. Itís doesnít make the scene more exciting, it just shows that Oliver Megaton is an especially incompetent film director, albeit one of many. Look at the first Taken; helmer Pierre Morel did employ this style, but only in a few short passages to enhance matters, which is how, for the most part, it should be used. I can only think of Michael Bay [ love him or hate him, he knows how to do his action], Paul Greengrass [well, up to Green Zone] and the late lamented Tony Scott who do this kind of thing well.

Of course it doesnít help that Taken 2 has been cut to get a Ď12í rating, and though the BBFCís website says that only three brief moments had to be toned down, it looks like the film has been hacked to bits even before it reached the UK. Itís obvious that punches and kicks have been edited on the point of impact and sometimes itís hard to even tell what has happened. Anyone with a musical ear will notice music edits, even one during a non-action scene. Between Megatonís abysmal directing and the censor cuts, Taken 2 is seriously handicapped, not to mention that the edits were at the behest of the distributors to achieve the lower rating. Iím so tired of this obsession with the ĎPG-13í and í12Aí certificates, but what is even more depressing is that films of a higher rating seem to do less and less well these days. I donít know what the answer is, and itís certainly not within the remit of what should be a straight-forward review for me to propose one, but itís a very sad state of affairs at the moment.

If you ignore the action, Taken 2 is quite good fun, honestly [says the critic whoís been mostly complaining about it so far]. What action you can see is mostly derivative [look out for Eraserís car/train gag yet again] but Grace has a neat window-ledge bit aka The Bourne Indentity which is quite exciting. The film is a lighter affair than the first one, the pace is even faster and the script, while it does have its silly bits, does score points for not just repeating events weíve seen before. Thereís one early section of the film when Mills is the one who is kidnapped, and itís young Grace who has to come and save him. These scenes manage to be both clever and stupid at the same time; the way Mills learns the location of where he is being held is especially noteworthy, but itís also incredibly dumb how the bad guys didnít find Millsí phone on him and he can use it to text Grace. I will say right now though that Neeson [who looks about 50, not 60] is as totally cool as ever, even when not given any memorable lines this time round. Heís totally, wonderfully, badass, yet lends the part a considerable dignity. Thereís a nice little scene near the end between him and the main villain which I actually wish had been longer, as it reveals a weariness in Mills, and itís interesting to see. I also couldnít stop thinking, as with the first film, that if all CIA agents were as good as Mills weíd have no terrorists running free whatsoever after a few weeks.

The music for Taken 2 is by Nathaniel Mťchaly, and itís not really a bad effort, but is yet again another action score that uses Japanese taiko drums, or something sounding like them. In the last three months I have heard four scores employing them [The Dark Knight Rises, Total Recall, Looper and this]. What the hell is the obsession with these drums? What is the obsession with making every action score sound the same? All in all, Taken 2 is an okay film and it could have been a lot worse, but it does have many of the worst features of films at the moment, from incoherent action to cutting down to a lower rating to bleeding taiko drums to others I havenít mentioned. And Megaton; well, as with The Red Siren and Columbiana, the film is watchable in spite of him, not because of it. This hack ruined one franchise with Transporter 3, and may have ruined another with this film, so what next? Bond? Oh no, hang on a minute, Marc Forster came close to already doing thatÖ.

Would be interesting to know what was cut out so as it could get a 12a? Thought it was pretty poor really what with the poor direction, cinematogrophy & editing it was like watching a very poor Segal straight to DVD what with the speeded up fight scenes & I say this because I really enjoyed the 1st film & had hoped this would be more of the same alas it was not to be. A dissapointing 5/10 (probably 1 more than I should give it as am hopeing for a more adult directors cut when it goes to DVD)

Would be interesting to know what was cut out so as it could get a 12a?

According to the BBFC, they informed Fox that to get a 12A they'd have to reduce 'elements of violence and threat'. Violence is likely to be blood spurts or any bones breaking (necks especially) and threat could be a gun or a knife too close to someone's face.

It's clear to me that Fox saw the film was a bit of a sinker so wanted an unneeded 12A cert to get more cash. Fox have messed this one up but it'll make money on dvd/Blu.

EDIT: According to the director in a interview with Total Film, the MPAA cut the film before the BBFC gave suggestions. The French version is uncut and is apparently 20 minutes longer that the MPAA approved version......

My biggest beef with the film? It's entirely joyless. As much as Neeson looks outraged and vengeful, and as much as his adversaries are painted as 'not very nice people', I found no real engagement in him systematically killing them. If anything, it seems to get grubbier with each Albanian body hitting the floor. All (ALL) the bad guys in Taken 2 are crudely drawn stereotypes, straight from the imaginations of Eastern-European-fearing Daily Mail readers. Naturally, Neeson's character kills them all.

At best, it's solidly below-average, but I'm also acutely aware that many of the reasons I didn't enjoy it are down to me, not the film-makers.

Ugh, it's all so bloodless. Liam Neeson practically hugs the bad guys to death. His dispatching of the main villian doesn't even look like he did kill him. Part of the fun of Taken was that it was down and dirty. Take that that away and what have you got?

I've been a very vocal critic on here about empires ridiculously po faced review of Taken, but they got the score for this one dead right.

So many things wrong here:

It takes an absolute bloody age to get in to the action. I go see a Taken film to watch Neeson snapping necks (didn't even get that this time), not watch half an hour of setting the bloody scene first. We get it, Mills is useless with his daughter and way too over-protective, we dont need it ramming down our throats.

The violence is practically non existant this time round. Its been dumbed down so much to get the 12A Justin Bieber crowd in, its just pointless. The fight scenes are so heavily edited they make no sense. Bad guys just drop from from mere slaps and some just end up dead without Neeson touching them, laughable at times.

The throwing the hand grenade scenes are comedy gold. "is there somewhere safe you can throw it?" Not bloody likely, you're right in the heart of a densely populated city and its a hand grenade not a fire cracker!!!! Has anyone ever seen a girl try and throw before?? I wouldn't trust my missus or sisters to lob anything 10 yards, let alone a hand grenade to a rooftop opposite!

Who was the albanian in the shell suit at the end who neeson fought in the turkish bath?? He was like the bloody terminator compared to the other hired goons. Why was he so indestructable and put up so much of a fight compared to all the others?? If Boris the Blade had a few more who like him neeson would have stood no chance!

I'm keeping everything crossed that there's an extended "harder" 18 cut like with the original. Maybe then we can get some decent fight scenes, some blood and a few bone crunching sound effects to rescue this major letdown ever so slightly.

I liked the film, it had a different feel to the first film and I think that's partly down to it being set in Istanbul but it does lack the punch of the first film. Taken did have the element of surprise on its side and like the guy setting off a party popper at a party it surprises you, but once he does it again you're no longer surprised, just indifferent. I think the toned down approach here doesn't help but I felt overall the first film was just a bit more suspensful and terse, not to mention frenetic! It's funny, when Bryan Mills says "I'm tired" (or something similar) you almost get the feeling he was talking about the role but he seemed to put as much effort in the second time around. I did feel it took a bit too long to get to the action and they could've zipped along a bit quicker. However, the film didn't feel like a total re-hash of the first and the "it's a nice coat" guy from Batman Begins made for an interesting villain if a little underused. I have to admit I was a bit surprised with his death scene, I wasn't sure whether Mills just smothered his face with just his hand but he must've impaled him on a hook or something.

I do find it funny how some here act with indignation about so-called stereotyping of Eastern Europeans yet I'm sure they would probably cross the road if they saw a 'dodgy johnny foreigner'. If Ethnic Albanians are unacceptable as villains, then which ones could be used without offending one's sensibilities?

To the ones who dislike Olivier Megaton, does he like to blow apart franchises?

Pretty obvious where a third film would probably go...either make it about different characters and cash in on the brand or somebody who isn't part of Neeson's family gets 'taken' and a person with the right set of skills is needed, thereby cashing in on the star.